The woman spoke, and her voice was like velvet wrapped around steel—deep, sultry, with a commanding undertone that made it clear she was used to being obeyed without question.
"You look even cuter in person."
She uncrossed her legs slowly, deliberately, the movement drawing attention to the expensive fabric of her dress shifting across her thighs. She brought one hand to her face, her fingers curling thoughtfully near her chin as she studied Tòumíng with the kind of intense focus usually reserved for evaluating expensive art.
Tòumíng looked around the room, left, right, behind him, because there was absolutely no way she was talking about him. Nobody talked to him like that. Nobody looked at him like that.
He pointed at himself uncertainly. "Umm... talking to me?"
She laughed, a posh, refined sound that carried centuries of breeding and wealth. The kind of laugh that came from someone who'd attended the best schools, traveled to the best places, and never once worried about money.
She stood up from the bed, rising to her full imposing height, and walked toward him with measured steps that made her hips sway hypnotically.
Since Tòumíng was sitting on the couch, she towered over him. 6'1 of pale perfection looking down at his 5'9 frame. The height difference was dramatic, making him feel small, vulnerable, trapped.
She reached down and brought her hand to his chin, lifting it gently but firmly so he was forced to look up at her face.
"It's a shame," she began, her thumb stroking his jawline, "that I never got to fuck that Min-woo fellow."
Tòumíng's eyes widened. What.
"Always so faithful to that woman, Ji-yeon." Her expression twisted slightly, not quite a scowl, but close. Displeasure at being denied something she wanted.
"So stubbornly devoted. So irritatingly loyal."
She continued, her hand still on his chin, keeping his face tilted up toward hers.
"I could have made Min-woo another one of my lovers. Another man who would fight and kill and DIE for me. Just like so many others have. But he was too stubborn. Too faithful to resist taking fruit from the tree that keeps on giving."
She said it like it was an impossible scenario. Like someone NOT being interested in her was a logical contradiction that violated the fundamental laws of the universe.
"Can you BELIEVE his audacity?" Her voice rose slightly with genuine indignation. "I offered to smuggle him to China, a service worth hundreds of thousands of yuan, in exchange for ONE NIGHT of passionate sex. One night! That's it! And he REFUSED! Took on massive debt instead! Debt that he passed to his CHILD rather than simply spending one evening with me!"
She stroked Tòumíng's cheek as she talked, her fingers cool against his skin.
"What a foolish man. Nobody is TRULY faithful. Everyone has their price. There is always someone, ALWAYS, who will make you go against your morals, your principles, your supposed 'values.' It's just a matter of finding the right person. The right offer."
Her hand moved from his cheek to his hair, running her fingers through it possessively. "But enough about Min-woo. He's dead and that's that. Nothing to be done about the past."
Her expression shifted—the displeasure fading, replaced by something hungrier.
"Now I see he has an offspring. A son. Who is oh sooo... enticing... to say the least."
She leaned down slightly, bringing her face closer to his, her pale blonde curls falling forward. "It's a shame your file says you like men. I was hoping for a more... direct approach to our relationship."
Tòumíng's eyebrow raised. His confusion overrode his fear. "Since when the HELL am I gay?! I LOVE girls! Where did you even get that—"
A foot appeared centimeters from his face.
He didn't even see her move. One moment she was standing normally, the next moment her leg was extended in a perfect martial arts kick that had stopped millimeters from his skull.
She could have knocked his head clean off his shoulders. The speed. The precision. The barely-restrained violence.
Her expression had shifted to fury—genuine, cold anger that made the temperature in the room seem to drop.
"NOBODY interrupts me. NOBODY. Do you understand? I speak, and you listen. That is how this works."
Her foot remained suspended near his face for another few seconds, making the threat absolutely clear.
Then—suddenly, unexpectedly—her anger transformed.
Her expression melted into something completely different. A blush spread across her pale cheeks. Her eyes went wide. Her hands pressed to her face like a lovestruck teenager.
"Eeeee!" The sound that came from her throat was completely at odds with her previous commanding tone. "He interrupted me! Nobody's interrupted me in over nineteen years of work! Not since—"
She paused, her blush deepening to something almost crimson. "The last person to interrupt me was Min-woo."
Her voice became almost dreamy, lost in memory. "He was so stubborn. So defiant. So RUDE to me. And I loved every second of it. Nobody else dares speak over me. Nobody else challenges me. Everyone else just agrees and obeys and it's so BORING."
She stared at Tòumíng with something that looked disturbingly like genuine affection. "Why did you have to be so much like your father? That same stubbornness. That same refusal to be intimidated. That same—"
She caught herself, shaking her head slightly, composing her features back into the sultry, controlled expression she'd worn when she first entered.
"Well." She lowered her leg gracefully, returning to a normal standing position. "Since you're apparently NOT gay—which changes things considerably—let me ask you something."
She crouched down slightly, bringing herself to eye level with Tòumíng, her face uncomfortably close to his. Her pale blue eyes locked onto his with predatory focus.
"Do you find me... enticing?"
Tòumíng gulped audibly. His throat was suddenly dry. His heart was pounding so hard he was certain she could hear it.
Inside his chest, Cupid's voice came through, quiet and very, very concerned. "I need to correct myself. I didn't feel murderous aura from this woman."
"Oh thank god—"
"I felt sexually pent-up aura. Which may lead to murderous aura if rejected. Which is somehow WORSE because now I don't know what's going to happen but it's DEFINITELY going to be bad for you either way."
"THAT'S NOT HELPFUL!"
"I'm just being honest! This woman radiates danger! Sexual danger! Violent danger! All the dangers! We are in SO MUCH TROUBLE!"
The Ice Queen was still waiting for an answer, her face inches from his, her expression expectant.
Tòumíng's brain scrambled for a response. What was the right answer here? What wouldn't get him killed? What wouldn't result in... whatever horrifying fate she had planned?